It’s not even Christmas yet, and Nintendo is already breaking the charts with its staggering 2.04 million consoles sold in November 2008, according to the latest NPD report. And that’s not even the best part! Apparently, last month was quite amazing, with revenues in video game industry going up 10 percent, despite the economic downturn.

The good news for Nintendo continues if we look further down the console chart, where we see the DS keeping a strong position at number 2, with 1.57 million units sold, way ahead of No.3 occupant, the Xbox 360, which sold “only” 836,000 units.

Any other consoles seems to have lost the battle last month, with sales going even below half a million, and here NPD revealed the three Ps: PSP, with 421,000, PS3 with 378,000, and PS2 with 206,000. In the confrontation between PS3 and Xbox, the biggest defeat was of course that of Sony, who sold less than half the number of consoles sold by rival Microsoft.

The sales were an essential factor in these sales figures, especially considering the price cut on Xbox 360, which reflects in the advantage over rival PS3.

NPD estimated the video game industry has totaled $16 billion so far, which make the $22 billion estimations for this year sound not quite impossible, if we take into consideration the fact that the shopping record month should undoubtedly be December.

NPD analyst Anita Frazier explained that one of the strongest contributors to the console sales going up so much is a wider audience, attracted by a wider variety of content. In addition to that, she added, economic factors are also important, considering this is a relatively inexpensive form of entertainment that offers hours of value.